Krampus: The Reckoning

Others have said already just how truly awful this film is. Basically, read the one star reviews and you'll get it. Anyone giving this over one star... well, people sometimes forget to take their medication.

I would say there should be some sort of self-torture achievement medal mailed to you if you manage to watch this movie all the way through. I quickly found myself skipping forward looking for something... anything... redeeming, but was completely disappointed.

That early coke-snorting sex scene could be shown in high school to break the wills of teenagers and feel them with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and loathing for the world. Showering only washes a fraction of the viewing shame away.

I don't even think this is better than the all-around awful "Dracula's Angel" (which at least had some comedy value given the super low "animation" budget, and tour-de-force bad acting).

This film has very little to do with Christmas (I remember seeing one Christmas tree) there a few comments of "Merry Christmas" but other than that it doesnt have any Christmas feel to it. I can only imagine that it must be Christmas in a warm area because nobody so much as wears a jacket. Krampus has about 5 seconds of screen time throughout the whole movie. It's really just a movie about a creepy little orphan girl. The acting is stiff and the characters are cardboard cliche. Its hard to find any sympathy toward any character as the little orphan girl is an irritating brat, the cops just make up police terminology to sound cool and the psychologist is a absolute moron. The psychologist even gets outsmarted by the little orphan girl when she tries to question her, and ends up telling the girl more personal information than she was getting out of her young patient; which says a lot about her level of education. Does this woman even have a degree? Even the cops in the movie are creepers. One married cop tries to cox the psychologist to join him at the bar, then the next night shows up at her house drunk in the middle of the night, and they eventually end up in bed together. My guess is that she was screwing the cop all along to keep her fake degree a secret.

Overall, the story is boring, the acting is horrible, it barely qualifies as a Christmas movie, and the villain is basically non-existent. Just another film trying to cash in on the Krampus legacy.

I am not going to call it awful because the story was pretty good, but the acting was terrible. The lead female with her droopy sad eyes, became annoying to look at just like that big bald guy with the ugly smile who looked like Daddy Warbucks. This story is interesting but so unbelievably rushed at the end. Some parts of this movie made no sense. Maybe it is just me, I dunno. I did not love this movie or hate this movie. I am somewhere in between. I think if the acting was better I might have enjoyed this movie a whole lot more. Regardless, if you want to see a movie with bad acting and ugly actors, this is the movie for you.

There is little positive to say about this movie apart from that they tried. There was certainly some thought put into the story, despite it also looking to be a desperate cash in on the Krampus name so close to the release of the studio produced film.

Besides this however there is only negatives as the writing and acting of this film are atrocious. To make matters worse the film makers clearly do not know how to make a small budget work for them. It helps to have some interesting characters who can fill time with fun dialogue, as well as a bit of flesh thrown in for distraction. However here the dialogue is terribly boring and goes on for far too long without the right pace and editing to make it engaging, and while a little flesh is a good tease, just sticking in some sex for no reason is far too cheap and only serves to highlight the lack of substance that they had to work with.

Overall this movie has nothing to offer apart from a passable idea for what could have been a decent story with more money and expertise behind the project. The main killer for this movie has to be the pace as it is just so, so painfully dull that it takes it away from the 'so bad that its funny' realm and puts it in the 'why am I even bothering to watch this' category. Avoid.

Okay, there is one glaring review by someone who gave this movie a 9 and raves about what a great movie it is. And even states that it is far superior to several other Krampus themed movies coming out this year. HHAAA!!! I saw one of the others, "Krampus", in the theater a week ago, and I must tell you it was also absolute trash, but it's an Oscar winner compared to this bucket of movie puke! The fact that this certain 9-star "reviewer" constantly praises the young lead actress and the director leads me to believe that this person is, somehow, tied to this movie (probably the director himself or the father of the actress using an IMDb alias profile).

This movie was terrible! Just terrible. It drags on and on and on with very weak dialogue and slow action until a scene finally changes. Sloppy directing and some horrible camera work. I think the director may have taken a home-study course in video production... and flunked out.

Here's a little storytelling advice for the director: The sloppy, white-trash, soft-core porn scene in the beginning was TOTALLY unnecessary and a scene like that does not serve to advance the plot. You just put it in there to try to give your horror movie some kind of substance, and probably a couple of friends a chance to be naked in a horror movie. It was like watching a porn video made by some amateur next door neighbors - and not very good looking ones, at that. So next time (God help us if there is one) skip that kind of garbage. It doesn't add validity to your horror movie, it only serves as a sign of weak storytelling.

And stop lingering with your scenes. They just drag on. Build some tension.

And for God's sake, spring for some kind of real creature makeup effects instead of a lo-res, poorly animated monster. The burnt remains of his victims were more convincing than Krampus himself. And by the way, his name is pronounced Krum-poohs, not Kram-pus. "Kram-pus" sounds too much like "Gramps" and it just really doesn't invoke any level of fear. Do your research before your write or direct a movie.

The young lead actress is nothing to behold, just another face in a crowd of 1000's of hopefuls. I know we all want to encourage young talent, but come on, Mr. IMDb Alias, her acting was not that great. I've seen better acting on Nick Jr. sitcoms.

And the guy playing the lead detective... wow. Did he take acting lessons from Ferris Bueller's Economics teacher? You know, the guy who just droned "Bueller, Bueller" for an eternity? There was absolutely no level of excitement in this guy's voice whatsoever. He sounded like he had a perpetual taking-a-dump kind of grunt to every word he mumbled. Christian Bale did it better as Batman.

Well, in closing, if you're considering watching this, I'd suggest you just skip this piece of garbage and thank heavens you weren't a part of its production. Or you could do your very own MST3k episode with it.